As a part of my marketing campaign to level out issues that really went proper in 2020, I name your consideration to Measure N, the 1-cent gross sales tax enhance that Bakersfield voters authorized … in November 2018.
So, yeah, it doesn’t really matter.
Had Bakersfield voters, a notoriously tax-averse bunch, rejected Measure N, as any self-respecting bookie would have forecast, we’d be a lot worse off proper now than we’re.
And, sure, it may actually be worse.
Passage of Measure N, aka the Bakersfield Public Security and Very important Companies Measure, has saved the town from making deep, critical cuts, a destiny that has befallen a major variety of municipalities.
U.S. cities have seen a 21 % drop in income for the reason that pandemic started, Axios stories, whereas extra bills — for PPE, remote-work know-how and time beyond regulation pay — have elevated 17 %, additional deepening the outlet, in keeping with a ballot of 900 municipalities by the Nationwide League of Cities.
Simply 7 % of cities that obtained funding from the CARES Act Coronavirus Aid Fund mentioned the infusion “adequately addressed their income shortfalls and unexpected bills,” in keeping with the nationwide group. Greater than a 3rd — 37 % — mentioned they have been pressured to chop their workforces, utilizing hiring freezes, wage freezes, layoffs, furloughs, cuts in work hours and early retirements.
Los Angeles has been among the many hardest hit. COVID-19 has created a $675 million gap within the metropolis’s income, and this month L.A.’s Finances and Finance Committee convened to mull a plan that features 1,800 layoffs. “Catastrophic” is how Chairman Paul Krekorian characterised it in feedback to information outlet LAist.
However Measure N, which raised the gross sales tax within the metropolis from 7.25 % to eight.25 %, will bail out Bakersfield to the tune of an estimated $58 million additional per 12 months. It grew to become efficient in April 2019.
Town secured that voter-approved windfall by the pores and skin of its tooth.
The gross sales tax enhance was dropping all through election evening 2018, and most of us went to mattress assuming it had gone down, as most native tax will increase — faculty bonds being among the many comparatively uncommon exceptions — have performed.
However when all of the votes had been counted almost per week later, it was a slim winner, 50.05 % sure to 49.95 % no. The same measure put forth by the county of Kern went down in flames.
Don’t suppose metropolis officers aren’t grateful.
“The hits simply carry on coming for 2020, however we have been actually lucky,” mentioned Vice Mayor Chris Parlier. “After all we have taken successful economically, however fortunately, with Measure N and sensible planning, we’re heading in the right direction. And as soon as the vaccine comes alongside, I feel we’ll be up and working fairly fast. … Now we have taken successful, however we’re nonetheless on strong footing.”
Bakersfield Metropolis Supervisor Christian Clegg, who moved into the job actually days earlier than the pandemic shut down the economic system, is aware of how a lot worse it may have been.
“COVID has in fact modified the sport for all municipalities, however we’re trying ahead to 2021, having some potential to return out of that mode. … We’re lucky in that now we have a plan going ahead and that now we have some assets to develop instruments to assist companies,” he mentioned.
Whereas different cities are pulling again laborious on the financial reins, Bakersfield authorities companies develop ever so steadily.
Some 29 new sworn law enforcement officials are scheduled to be employed with Measure N funds in fiscal 2020-21, a part of the hassle to rent 100 new officers over a three-year interval. Think about cuts on the Bakersfield Police Division as an alternative of development in a 12 months the place violent crime, together with murder, is nearly off the chart and requires improved de-escalation methods and “delicate policing” — which demand extra badges, not fewer — proceed.
Roughly $10 million has been allotted this 12 months to addressing homelessness, together with funding for the brand new Brundage Lane Homeless Navigation Heart.
About $7.three million in Measure N funding goes towards reasonably priced housing tasks.
Measure N can be funding a brand new Clear Metropolis Initiative — $1.5 million for ongoing cleanup and upkeep in public areas and $1.four million for different citywide beautification tasks.
Simply this week, the Bakersfield Metropolis Council and Kern County Board of Supervisors handed measures meant to handle unlawful dumping and littering, and the Public Security and Very important Companies Measure — Measure N — will assist make it attainable on the town aspect of that endeavor.
“Frankly, this was a bit of Measure N that we campaigned on, that we’d work on beautification, that we’d work on enhancing the standard of life for our metropolis,” Councilman Andrae Gonzales instructed The Californian’s Sam Morgen final week.
With out the 1 % gross sales tax enhance, Clegg instructed The Californian, the brand new cleanup efforts wouldn’t be attainable.
In the meantime, many different U.S. cities have been pressured into painful selections. As Steve Adler, mayor of Austin, Texas, not too long ago instructed Axios, “Our actual decisions are actually on who you assist and the way you assist them. These are probably the most troublesome decisions, as a result of there’s such nice want.”
No one likes to pay taxes and no person likes to see them go up. However proper now 50.05 % of Bakersfield voters needs to be feeling fairly sensible. And 100 % needs to be feeling grateful.
Robert Worth is a journalist for KGET-TV. His column seems right here on Sundays; the views expressed are his personal. Attain him at robertprice@kget.com or by way of Twitter: @stubblebuzz.
— to www.bakersfield.com
The post ROBERT PRICE: Bakersfield hates taxes but right now it loves 2018’s Measure N | Robert Price appeared first on Correct Success.
source https://correctsuccess.com/taxes/robert-price-bakersfield-hates-taxes-but-right-now-it-loves-2018s-measure-n-robert-price/
No comments:
Post a Comment